Patience
by Cascade Waters
Summary: Severus Snape had never believed in angels. Gift ficlet for passion heart.


Patience - for passion_heart

by firechild

Rated PG

Pairing: SS/HG

Disclaimer: They ain't mine.

Warning: Not what you're expecting.

A/N: Genny asked for an ss/hg, which I've never even fathomed before now. So here's what I came up with--hope it's not a huge letdown, hon!

A/N2: This is obviously very AU. I have not read DH, nor do I want to be spoiled, and this assumes that books 6 & 7 did not happen; I'm writing to order here.

-----

He found her at the end of his rounds; how she'd gotten past him, he didn't know, and he'd save caring about it for later. Just at the moment, he preferred to focus on the figure curled on the stones by his chamber door.

Most people appeared young and unfettered, even, some said, angelic when asleep. Severus Snape had never believed in angels; he'd grown up in a world where Heaven was a confection he'd never been able to afford from the sweet shop round the corner from his house, and messengers more often than not left no one alive to pass on anything. His snakelings had always looked infantile but never innocent and certainly not cherubic, despite their carefully coiffed perfection even in sleep.

But her....

She had matured over the years, of course, blossomed into a capable and confident young woman, but while she'd definitely grown into her power, she was still slender, barely reaching his chin, physically unremarkable. Her face was still angular and elfin, her curves subtle, her porcelain skin more often than not smudged with dirt or soot or the dust of little-read tomes, and her hair... No matter how meticulous she was about starting her days looking professional and in control, her hair always found a way to defy her, as it had been doing since long before his first encounter with the little lionness who had seemed even then equal parts brain and gut. There, in the near-darkness with no one (no one awake, at least) to see, he quirked up one side of his mouth at the memory of that cloud of curly hair appearing with distressing regularity in troublesome situations. He realized now that even then a tiny part of him had wanted to protect her, but he hadn't been able to recognize or acknowledge it, let alone act on it, until she'd returned to Hogwarts and he'd found himself face to face with her at the yearly pre-term staff meeting.

Since then, he'd seen her almost daily, and the first time she'd been absent for a couple of days, he'd been alarmingly discomfitted. That was when he'd realized that it had come over him, not roaring or flaming like an explosion, but quiet and cool like the feel of her beloved pages beneath his fingertips. Since then, he'd dismissed, he'd denied, he'd derided, he'd digested, and finally he'd deliberated, always silently, secretly, trying to keep his thoughts compartmentalized but finding her invading his thoughts in every part of his day. It had taken him a year and a half to decide that there was just nothing for it but to take the chance, which made less than no sense--he was not the type to gamble, nor was he given to indulging emotions, especially those involving any sort of... love. He'd risked himself before, when he'd been young and might have had a chance at a somewhat normal life, and he'd been forced to look at what might have been for seven years before Potter... Harry... had gone on to find out that fame and talent did not win him a pass from the usual razzing meant to weed out weak Aurors and fortify those meant to succeed. No, he wasn't a gambling man, but for her, he would take the risk.

And he had--when the staff had returned to prep for the spring term during her second year of teaching transfiguration and advanced arithmancy (and substituting in almost every other subject when needed,) he'd privately let her know how he felt, and then he'd left it in her hands. He'd watched her go through varying degrees of shock, disbelief, uncertainty, curiosity, debate (but never disgust) over the past two years, while the two of them had very carefully maintained their professional distance and customary demeanors for the watchful eyes of others. He wasn't sure who thought they knew what, and he was tired of caring about it; odd, that since he'd realized that he loved her, he'd been caring about things he shouldn't and not bothering with things he should. He shook his head--leave it to her to turn his world back in on itself.

He sighed to himself as he knelt on the chill stones. He'd waited for two years for her to make a decision one way or the other, and for those two years he'd tried very hard to presume that she would reject him, so as to dampen the almost-certain blow when that rejection came, but then, he'd been surprised when she hadn't laughed him off at once, and more gratified than he was willing to admit when she'd met his eyes and quietly promised that he would eventually have an answer either way, when she was ready. He supposed that, on this cold December night, her presence in his dungeon across the castle from her warm bed in her tower was her way of offering an answer.

He lifted her easily, cradling her to his chest with a tenderness that no one who thought they knew him would believe to be within him, and padded silently across the ancient castle, holding her close to lend his warmth and smiling internally when she slipped her hands into the folds of their mingled robes for warmth--he took it for what it was: a sign of trust. Oh, he could very easily just levitate her and magick her on her way, but that just didn't seem right to him, and leaving her there on the cold stones (or even warming and softening them) and letting her spend the night there was out of the question; oddly enough, he didn't even briefly entertain the idea of putting her in his bed. He didn't like that she was also still in her robes; when she wanted to be comfortable after class hours, she usually wore Muggle sweats or knit casual attire, which meant that tonight, as with far too many nights lately for his liking, she'd been working nonstop, even though most of the students had left for holiday break yesterday. At least he didn't have to bother with bumping in to anyone and having to answer questions, or, worse, risking disturbing her sleep. He murmured the password and shot the Fat Lady a withering look that shut her up just before he carefully picked his way through the portrait hole and made his way up the stairs into the dorm room she shared with a few of the senior students (and was suddenly very glad that he'd been on the committee updating the spells restricting coed mingling in the dorms.)

He laid her gently on her bed and gingerly covered her, lingering longer than was strictly necessary as he watched her nestled into the pillows; with one long, pale finger, he lifted a stray curl from her face and released it to join its sisters against the linens, not quite trusting his skill at not waking her enough to tuck it behind her ear. She would be irritated in the morning for having slept in her robes, but her falling asleep outside of his door in the middle of the night in no way gave him the right to even partially undress her for any reason, regardless of how many reasons he might want to. He gazed down at her porcelain face, which once again bore signs of a dedication that surpassed her urge to always be as impeccably groomed as was possible for her, for another moment before turning and gliding soundlessly back to his lair.

So, he was to have his answer after all. Yes, it was possible that she had come intent on telling him face-to-face that she could never connect with him in that way, and if that was to be her choice, then he would respect it. He might have to consider the possibility of respecting it from a distance, of leaving the only home and the only real purpose he'd ever known, but he would deal with that when or if the time came. He rather suspected, on some level that didn't look like thin hope, that if she'd settled on rejecting him, she would have gone about letting him know differently, that her coming to his chamber and then staying despite the cold and the gloom signified something far more promising, and so, as he changed into nightclothes and settled in to his own bed for the night, Severus smiled to himself, a real, full smile that he didn't have to hide from the shadows, and let himself begin to anticipate that this holiday would mean something to him. Oh, the wrappings and the trappings didn't matter, they hadn't in some time; he'd already experienced the spirit of giving and now the spirit of recieving--he'd given her time and understanding and the freedom to do and be just what and whom she wanted, and it seemed that she was now giving him something far more precious: a chance to be, himself, wanted.

So it wasn't to be now, tonight, this moment. That was okay--he'd waited far longer than three-and-a-half years, and for her, for Miss--Professor--Granger, for his messy angel, he would wait one night more.

-----


End file.
